Lewis Hamilton made it seven different winners from as many races this season when he charged to a thrilling victory in the Canadian Grand Prix today.

The 2008 world champion staged an epic tactical duel with Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso to win the race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

The three drivers, starting on super-soft Pirelli rubber, ran at the front of the field from the start, and Alonso’s Ferrari looked to have the edge on pace over the Red Bull of early leader Vettel and Hamilton’s McLaren. Nevertheless, the Briton turned in a strong middle stint of the race and opened out a small gap over his pursuers.

But the race victory seemed to have completely swung away from Hamilton when his team brought him in for a second pitstop for fresh tyres, assuming that Ferrari and Red Bull were both going to follow a similar strategy.

When it became clear that Alonso and Vettel were both gambling on getting to the end of the race on a one-stop strategy, McLaren ordered Hamilton to go on a charge to make up the ten-second gap to the leaders.

He quickly reeled in Vettel, who offered little resistance, and then steamed past Alonso, who encountered severe tyre wear issues in the closing laps.

The Spaniard slumped to fifth at the end as Lotus’s Romain Grosjean and Sauber’s Sergio Perez moved up into the podium places, and Vettel – who had to dive in for new rubber – recovered to fourth.

Hamilton was overjoyed by his first victory since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last November, and the result also puts him on top of the world championship standings, two points ahead of Alonso and three in front of Vettel.

What a waste of a car and money. His mechanics, engineers etc must be so disillusioned.

While I like Massa I really do feel his time is up in F1. Since his horrific accident in 2009 he has rarely failed to achieve even half-decent results and has so often been off the pace of other top teams and Alonso, to such a degree that even even any conspiracy of Alonso having better machinery and favouritisms can't explain Massa's woeful performances. And if Ferrari has any desire of winning the constructor's title any time soon, it's time for them to look for a replacement for Massa.

As for the race, credit still needs to go to Hamilton. Had he not changed tyres he'd have been overtaken by Grosjean and Perez, and with new tyres he was still being hunted down by the remarkable tyre-saving Renault.

It was indeed a great race - and it was good to see yet another different winner.

But I can't help thinking that today's F1 cars are just too fickle. It seems that almost any driver can win when the tyres, aerodynamics, track surface, temperature, humidity etc are just right, while some of the greatest drivers look decidedly mediocre when they are not. The cars either work well or they are hopeless - and even the best brains in the business are not able to make them work consistently.

Much as I like the variety of having lots of different winners this season, it has become very difficult to gauge the abilities of the drivers. But maybe that's just part of the fascination of this season and we're seeing some of the best racing ever.

What charge?,it was never going to be heroic,his main rivals were running out of grip, tires fell of the edge,the strategy from the pits won the race,all he had to do was drive.passing?,with a long straight and DRS it wasn't exactly nail biting if he was going to make it,and i'm not Hamilton bashing, because it would be the same description for the other protagonists, still, 7 races, seven different winners, what's not to like?

It wasn't that great a race to be honest. Fine, the last few laps were exciting in a sense that something truly different was going to happen, but a good 80% of that race was many cars not running at 100% because they didn't want to have to stop more than was absolutely necessary.

Well done to Ferrari and Red Bull for being brave on the fly (though David Coulthard, don't talk balls post race), and extra applause for Red Bull for taking another brave decision. McLaren still are fragile in the pits, but at least Lewis Hamilton finally got to put in the pace he has...though he still wasn't going at 100%.